Celebrating American independence and entrepreneurship
Seven score and 11 years ago, Abraham Lincoln’s inspired speech at the Gettysburg Cemetery dedication included these words: “…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Four score and seven years earlier, one of those fathers, Thomas Jefferson, penned what is arguably the most important secular document in history, the Declaration of Independence, which included this passionate passage:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Having the spirit, courage, and vision to declare independence at a time when monarchy was the globally accepted model of government was unprecedented. To fight for those principles then, and defending them from within and without in the two centuries since, is impressive.
To be sure, America has had lapses in the delivery of some of these tenets. Indeed, while Lincoln was trying to save his beloved country, he made this judgment: “We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us.”
Even today, America is a work-in-progress. We’re on a journey of understanding that has many stations where new things are learned and past wrongs can be righted. But in terms of contribution to the world, Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” has an incomparable record. Warts and all, the United States of America is still a benefactor nation with millions, if not billions of beneficiaries.
Freedom to dream is found in other lands, as is freedom to pursue dreams. But no entrepreneurial soil is more fertile than in America, and it’s because of those who had the conviction to create our founding documents, the will to deliver them, and the courage to defend them.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have been essential to millions of American small businesses. If you ask anyone anywhere on the planet where to go to start a business and have the greatest chance to succeed and accrue the fruits of that labor, the answer would be America. Like the Founders, generation after generation of American small business owners have demonstrated courage as they claimed and perpetuated the American dream.
As we celebrate the blessings of another Fourth of July in America, let’s hold fast to Lincoln’s closing prayer so beautifully conveyed in his 1st Inaugural Address. That the relationships we have with each other will be “touched by the better angels of our nature.”
Write this on a rock … Happy Independence Day.
